WHEN IT HIT

When it hit
the gas rushed, crazed & slip-shouldered
up the pipe & out of the drill-pierced ground.
It exploded in a fit of graceful ecstasy,
shook off its excesses
& in a quick, fierce shiver
focused & held,
curling its drawn-fingered worship skyward,
its sinews tense with purpose in taut air.

You watched with a fervor your clear eyes invented
& stood like Lot’s wife, reborn in rock-salt & awe.
I held you with a stone arm
as we watched the flame wash the blistering air.

Making love that night,
our senses thrilled with the hot blues & yellows
our bodies fed to a swallowing darkness,
I flared as something rushing from an impaled earth;
your movement set fire to a sky pierced with steel.

–Rob Simbeck
Kansas Quarterly